The Olympics Wrap-up Wrap-up

I always get psyched for The
Olympics and it never lets me down, especially when I see athletes
being good sports and shaking hands after tough games. I’m not
kidding—that’s the kind of attitude the world needs more of,
instead of all the flag-waving and wearing of the flag as a cape. I
mean, enough, you already get a medal.

I totally have Post-Olympics-fever fever now because Bob
Costas1 or Al Michaels2 or Ryan Seacrest3 on NBC-TV on my TV said it’s only like 18
months until the next Olympics, which is gonna be the Winter
Olympics in Russia, in
this place called Sochi, and except for Boxing, which for some
reason I always think is in the Summer Olympics,4 I like the next Olympics better, the Winter
ones, mostly at this point because there’s no Beach Volleyball to
hog up all the Regular-TV time.
Downhill Skiing, man, that shit is 100% Pure Adrenaline! The Giant
Slalom! The Super G! Speeds up to 80mph, and it’s nothing but a
Human Being on skis! I think the Luge is dopey, I mean why not have
Ice-sailing or Tobogganing outdoors down a real hill and not on a
super-dangerous manmade track? But I still say Winter Olympics is
the Best.

In the Summer Olympics, checking out all the killer Athleto-bods
is part of the Spectacle and Pageantry, and there’s lots of
satisfying semi-nudity in the swimming and diving and stuff,
especially in the diving with the new Showering part? Against that
wall? Jeez. But with respect to the Sport, even the players in the
Beach Volleyball know their outfits are part of the Appeal, but of
course the other reason there was so much Sand-Volleyball on
Television was they (The National Broadasting Company, which didn’t
have as much stuff or as much different stuff on Regular TV as they
shoulda) figured the USA Womens team that won twice before, which
is pretty crazy, because they started eight years ago,5 was gonna get another Gold Medal—and they did,
bless their sandy butt cracks.6

Hey, what about Beach Sand Luge? They could make a giant Sand
Castle Luge course and hose it down to make it all slide-y, and
then put people with Athletic Bodies on Luges and hose ‘em down
while they are sliding along the Luge-track in bathing suits?

I enjoy watching the regular Volleyball, but Sandball volleyball
is OK, I mean, it is a game being played against an Opponent.

The most ridiculous (besides having a horse in the Olympics) is
this Rhythmic Gymnastics. Anything can be a Sport, as long as
it can be evaluated, right? I watched some Rhythmic Gymnastics
featuring a team of five ladies who were moving around very
precisely and Gymnastically and tossing balls up into the air, and
it was pretty cool, and certainly a remarkable display of skill,
the way they could throw the ball wa-aaaaay up in the air and catch
it with their feet, and all throw the ball at the same time and
then do some tumbling stuff and catch the ball, but it looked
mostly like dancing, which is great, but I don’t think it really
works as a Sport. It’s something I would applaud in Vegas, you
know? If I got a Package Deal to the Wynn or the Bellagio or
someplace (realistically, probably the Tropicana, though) and it
included tickets to the Rhythmic Gymnastics? I would go and check
it out. It’s like that Cirque du Soleil stuff, which is also mostly
about getting horned-up over fit bodies. I never saw one, just the
ads on the bus for the “Zumanity” one, of the Cirque. But hey,
howabout those STOMP people at the closing ceremonies doing all
that STOMPing, rhythmically? That shit is Athletic, why not put it
in the Olympics?

I thought the Closing Ceremonies were a little more fun than the
Opener, mostly because the athletes and coaches who are left (as in
not the ones who are Too Important to stick around when they don’t
have an event) got loose and were having fun, so it made the
Festivities seem super Festive. They got even more Englisher and
had the Spice Girls riding around up on top of Ye Olde English
taxicabs, and somehow I think you could make an Olympics Event out
of that. I thought each Spice7 was
a very accurate and powerful representative of her own Spice-ness.
That movie is very underrated, I think, the Spice Girls movie. I
thought the thing where they had David Bowie’s song “Fashion” going
and people in uniforms were goose-stepping made the moment as
creepy as the song, and then when they had a bunch of fashion
models walking around showing they all got Gold Medals in Walking,
that was something they could have done without, you know? Also
that chick Jessie J? One dose of her was enough, then they hadda go
and have her sing the Freddie Mercury part on “We Will Rock You?”
Annoying. Also that Russell Brand dude sings worse than Gene
Wilder.

Also, I started to feel bad because the lady on TV who was
talking about the Rhythmic Gymnastics kept referring to the balls
they were throwing around as “apparatus,” which makes me think
she’s sick of people coming up and going, “Hey, lady, all your
sport has is a buncha Pixies and Sprites tossing balls at each
other and waving sticks with ribbons on ‘em. Why don’t you see if
they could strap garbage cans on their feet and dance rhythmically,
like they do in that STOMP show, huh? Burrrp!”8

I never saw any of the Table Tennis, which, to me, also sounds
like it should be a Winter Olympics event, because usually nobody
is really into going down to the rec room in the basement to play
Ping-Pong when it’s nice out, so it seems more like a Winter
activity, eh? I know it’s not Ping-Pong, it’s Table Tennis, and I’m
looking forward to Beach Table Tennis whenever that gets invented.
But hands down, the most intense competition-action I saw was the
Badminton. Damn, I’m not kidding. Spend a few minutes on a doubles
match, that shit is 100% pure adrenaline, seriously.

1 I think what’s going on
up there on top of his head is a combo of some sort of hair
coloring, plus one of those operations where they take the hair off
your back or neck and put it on your head, plus a large quantity of
hairspray. The biggest problem I think is the color, because it’s
kind of all pretty much the same color on top, but then it’s way
light-browner at the sideburns and it’s just not a good transition.
It’s just like the Floor Exercise, you know? You gotta have smooth
transitions.

2 He looks like he
basically is going with what he’s got, but then maybe a little
Just For Men and then definitely plus a hellas-whole-lotta
hairspray.

3 He has good hair but
I really didn’t need him at the Closing Ceremony telling me they
were going to darken the mood or whatever when they were darkening
the mood, you know? Some day, maybe already, on your TV you will be
able to have the live sound of a Sporting Event (in this case a
Musical Event) and then be able to filter out the bonehead
announcer who talks all over the intro of a live performance of a
song and ruins it like he’s a goddamn radio deejay.

5 All the announcers
were constantly reminding me that the Olympics is every Four Years,
so if somebody won last time, it meant they won four years ago, and
if they won before that, they were really fucking old, in Athlete
Years, which are way harsher than Dog Years.

6 There’s no spoilers of
Olympics, mostly because almost all the Olympics was five hours
ahead of when it was on TV here.

7 I made a joke on the
Twitter about Old Spice, but I think the moment has passed.

8 I swear that was not
me saying that stuff to her. I respect the athleticism of the
Rhythmic Gymnasts, I just don’t get how it’s a sport when they
don’t have Horseshoes or Bocce at the Olympics. Because that’s
where the Winter Olympics beats Summer, man: Curling.

9 Because when they were
all talking about the Winter Olympics, Bob Costas starts trying to
crack on Al Michaels, telling him he needs to be prepared and he
needs to buy some Winter clothes, but Michaels totally touchés his
fake-hair-looking ass and says he thinks it’s a resort city, so
he’s guessing the Wintry action is up in the mountains, and he’s
right, man, Sochi is totally a Subtropical climate with mild
winters, like 50 fahrenheit. Plus it means my man Al is gonna party
at the resort, and maybe catch a Rhythmic Gymnastics show.